White House spokesman John Kirby said the US has seen “initial indications” that Russia may be responsible for the downing of the Azerbaijan Airlines plane that crashed on December 25.
Kirby did not elaborate, but told reporters that the US was offering assistance in the crash investigation.
The plane is believed to have come under fire from Russian air defense systems as it attempted to land in Chechnya before diverting across the Caspian Sea to Kazakhstan, where it crashed.
The Kremlin declined to comment, but the head of Russia’s civil aviation service said the situation in Chechnya was “very complicated” because of Ukrainian drone strikes in the region.
Kirby said the clues the US saw went beyond the widely circulated photos of the damaged aircraft, the Washington Post reported.
Aviation experts and others in Azerbaijan believe the plane’s GPS systems were affected by electronic interference and then damaged by shrapnel from exploding Russian air defense missiles.
Azerbaijan has not blamed Russia, but the country’s transport minister said the plane suffered “external interference” and was damaged inside and out as it tried to land.
“All [οι επιζώντες] they invariably stated that they heard three explosion sounds when the aircraft was over Grozny,” said Rashad Nabiyev.
He said investigators will now examine “what kind of weapon or rather what kind of missile was used.”
For its part, the Kremlin declined to comment on the growing number of reports that the Azerbaijan Airlines plane was shot down by Russian air defenses. “An investigation into this plane incident is underway, and until the conclusions are drawn as a result of the investigation, we do not consider ourselves entitled to make any assessments,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
The Kazakh authorities are treating the injured and are working closely with Azerbaijan on the investigation. Reports in Baku say both Russia and Kazakhstan have proposed that a Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) commission – a regional body dominated by Russia – investigate the crash, but Azerbaijan has demanded an international inquiry.
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